The Essence of Coaching for Senior Leaders

As you grow as a leader in terms of impact and career, it is important to update your own way of leading. Being able to adapt your leadership style to the situation and the people you are leading is the key to greater leadership effectiveness.

Coaching is one of the most impactful leadership styles, as shown by the work of Daniel Goleman and others. It has the potential to unleash the full creativity of people and help create a culture in which people can grow.

At the same time, coaching is not merely a leadership technique: it is also an attitude that requires a certain level of leadership maturity. The leadership maturity of the senior people in an organization can both enable and restrict the leadership culture within the organization. If coaching is used with the wrong intentions, it can easily backfire and even reduce the trust of your people.

Using the Leadership Choices coaching model, you will be given insights into powerful questions and levels of listening. Further, you will apply the learnings of the course directly in live coaching cases that you will work with throughout the program.

Your personal benefit

• Enhance the impact and effectiveness of your leadership
• Ascertain your own leadership style portfolio
• Learn how to turn random interactions into powerful coaching conversations
• Create greater empowerment for the people around you
• Unleash the creativity and accountability of the people you lead
• Maximize your potential as a senior leader through this unique learning experience with intensive, hands-on exercises
• Expand your professional network to an interdisciplinary team of leadership experts at one of Germany’s most renowned business schools
• Become part of an active network of peers and program alumni at WHU
• Earn CCE (Continuing Coach Education) units for your ICF (re)-certification
• Dive into the possibility to develop from being a leader coach to a professional coach

Your company´s benefits

• Help your leaders become more effective
• Increase your managers’ job satisfaction and sense of purpose
• Create a healthier leadership culture in your organization

Ideal candidate profiles include:

• Experienced leaders who want to reflect upon and improve their leadership portfolio
• Senior professionals who want to prepare themselves for their next leadership challenge
• HR professionals who want to help their managers grow and want to create a coaching culture in their organizations
• Managers with the willingness and ability to self-reflect and be open to receiving coaching themselves
• Senior professionals who would like to become a Certified Coach
• Professional coaches who want to collect CCE units to update their ICF certification

Participants should have a minimum of 5-8 years of leadership experience.

As a participant, you should have access to your own team or other people who you can approach as coaching clients ("coachees") between the face-to-face modules for practical practice.

The minimum number of participants for this program is 12.

This face-to-face program consists of 2 face-to-face modules at the campus in Düsseldorf (2.5 days each) and 3 supplementary online sessions (1.5 hours each) between the face-to-face modules. For an optimal learning experience, it is essential that you as a participant take part in both face-to-face modules.

Between the face-to-face modules, participants also work with real coaching clients (so-called "coachees") in order to directly apply and practice what they have learned. Furthermore, participants should plan in time to work on self-reflection homework etc.